Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 2 of 2]
With his Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader

By Benjamin Franklin

Page 43

B. FRANKLIN.

* * * * *

ON LUXURY, IDLENESS, AND INDUSTRY.[2]

[2] From a letter to Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, dated at Passy, July 26th, 1784.

It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of this world aremanaged. Naturally one would imagine that the interest of a fewindividuals should give way to general interest; but individuals managetheir affairs with so much more application, industry, and address thanthe public do theirs, that general interest most commonly gives way toparticular. We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit oftheir collected wisdom; but we necessarily have, at the same time, theinconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices, and privateinterests. By the help of these, artful men overpower their wisdom anddupe its possessors: and if we may judge by the acts, _arrets_, andedicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an assembly ofgreat men is the greatest fool upon earth.

I have not yet, indeed, thought of a remedy for luxury. I am not surethat in a great state it is capable of a remedy, nor that the evil is initself always so great as it is represented. Suppose we include in thedefinition of luxury all unnecessary expense, and then let us considerwhether laws to prevent such expense are possible to be executed in agreat country, and whether, if they could be executed, our peoplegenerally would be happier, or even richer. Is not the hope of being oneday able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labour andindustry! May not luxury, therefore, produce more than it consumes, ifwithout such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enoughinclined to be, lazy and indolent? To this purpose I remember acircumstance. The skipper of a shallop, employed between Cape May andPhiladelphia, had done us some small service, for which he refused to bepaid. My wife, understanding that he had a daughter, sent her anew-fashioned cap. Three years after, this skipper being at my housewith an old farmer of Cape May, his passenger, he mentioned the cap, andhow much his daughter had been pleased with it. "But," said he,

These are not the necessaries
of life; they can scarcely be called the conveniences: and yet only
because they look pretty, how many want to have them?--By these, and
other extravagancies, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to
borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who, through industry
and frugality, have maintained their standing; in which case it appears
plainly, that "A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on
his knees," as Poor Richard says.

" At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in
thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance
without injury; but
"For age and want save while you may,
No morning sun lasts a whole day.